GMP Officers suffer high sickness levels

Greater Manchester Police continues to suffer a high level of staff sickness — with more officers off ill than in London’s Metroplitan Police.

Latest figures show the rates of people off work have increased slightly, though they remain much better than at the beginning of the decade.

In July, the number of days off per officer was 0.72, or 8.6 days a year — up from 0.65 days in June. For overall staff, 0.82 was the average days lost, or 9.8 days a year — down from 0.87 in June.

It’s an improvement on last July, when officers had 0.81 days off and staff 0.82, and significantly better than 2000-01 when officers were off 14.7 days a year and overall staff 15.7.

The current rate of 9.14 for officers is a 38 per cent reduction, while 9.95 for staff is a 37 per cent reduction.

But it still leaves GMP worse than other forces, behind the Metroplitan force (7.7 average days off a year for officers), West Midlands (7.03), Merseyside (7.23), South Yorkshire (7.7), West Yorkshire (7.43) and Northumbria (8.67).

Police chiefs admit they are not achieving their target but say it is an improving picture when compared month on month.

They have arranged five visits to the better performing forces to look at how they are managing and improving attendance.

Elsewhere, GMP was just one off its target of 95 in recruiting new police officers between April and June. It aims to recruit 476 officers over the financial year.

It’s just below a target of at least 35 per cent of new recruits being female and 10 per cent from a minority ethnic background.